Timothy Johnston - The Current

“Some good citizen or other,” said Halsey. “You don’t know who?”

“I know who. He owns that rifle in the back seat you’re eyeballing.”

“You got his rifle but not him?”

“That’s right. I figure this man has been through enough. I let him go. You want to arrest him you go ahead. I’ll give you his rifle. You can look it up and track him down for yourself.”

Halsey watched him. “How about we take one thing at a time here.”

Moran looked away then, seeing something, and said, “And now here come your deputies.”

The two cruisers had pulled in, parking where they could, Bobby and Vickie getting out of the cruisers and approaching. They did not come too close but positioned themselves behind and to either side of Halsey, no weapons drawn or even hands on their weapons but just standing by, following his lead, and he knew all this without seeing any of it directly.

“What’s going on here, Wayne?” Moran said.

“Right now it’s just a conversation, Ed.”

“We could’ve had a conversation over the phone. But then I’d be down in Iowa and you couldn’t exactly run the show down there, could you.” He looked around the lot. He looked at the Tahoe again. “And it’s a dandy show, Wayne, no doubt about it, but I have to ask—just what the fuck makes you think you can detain me for one second longer than I want to be detained?”

“Like I said, right now it’s just a conversation. I thought you might like to have your say before it went any further. Just you and me.”

“And if I don’t want to have a conversation?”

“Then I’m going to put you in cuffs and take you to the station and book you.”

“On what charge?”

“Assault, to begin with, and we’ll go from there, depending on the full testimony of the involved parties.”

“Parties,” said Moran. “What parties?”

“What happened to your ear there, Ed?”

“Sucker punched by a drunk.”

“A drunk.”

“You heard me.”

“It wasn’t a girl in a cast?”

Moran turned to look at the Tahoe again and turned back. “If some little girl hit me with her cast don’t you think your assault charge would be going the other way?”

“Not if she was fighting you off. Not if she was fighting you off while you were trying to drown her in the river. Which of course would be another kind of charge altogether.”

“Is that what she told you?”

“That’s her story.”

“And you believe her.”

“Let’s say I’ve got reason to believe she has no reason to make up a story like that.”

“I’ll give you a reason.”

“All right.”

“The reason is she’s got it in her little head that I had something to do with a case ten years old, a case her daddy couldn’t solve and so now she’s trying to solve it by believing some crazy story she hears. But because that story is crazy and she knows it, she figures she can make up a new one and get me arrested on that charge.”

“Yeah,” said Halsey. “I considered that version of things myself. But I don’t think she’s that crazy, Ed. And I don’t think—” He stopped himself, remembering Jeff Goss at the last second. “I don’t think the other one is crazy either.”

“Other what?”

“The other girl who says you used the authority of your office to do something I won’t even say right now.”

Moran stared at him. “What girl said that?”

“Never mind her name. What matters is I’ve got two accounts from two different people, I’ve got a hole in the ice on the river, I’ve got bootprints coming and going, I’ve got blood in the snow and I’ve got that split-open ear on the side of your head. I guess you could say I’m beginning to see the makings of a case here, Ed. And that doesn’t even include Danny Young.”

Moran’s expression did not change. “Danny Young.”

“Danny Young who’s gone missing but who wrote me a letter.”

Moran said nothing. Staring at him. Then he threw up his hands and Halsey put his hand on his pistol grip, and his deputies drew their sidearms and held them two-handed and aimed at the ground. Moran looked at the roof of the cab and said, “The whole world has gone shitbird crazy on me, I swear to God.”

“Ed,” said Halsey.

“What.”

“Do you want to tell me about last night? About the river?”

Moran shook his head. “Sure, Wayne, I’ll tell you about last night. I’ll tell you I had to go out on that ice to try to save that dumb-ass girl from drowning, risking my own goddam neck, and she clocks me with her goddam cast. I should’ve just let her drown, you want to know the truth. And now this.”

“Why did you lie to me just now? About your ear?”

“I guess we’ll have to chalk that one up to pride, Wayne. Didn’t want you to think some little girl coldcocked me.”

“What were you doing in the park in the first place, Ed? What were you even doing up here?”

“I told you, I’ve got an active investigation. I was actually looking for that girl so I could give her an update.”

“You might’ve just called her.”

“I might’ve, but I didn’t, and last I checked there’s no law against a law officer going to see his witness in person.”

“Why’d she go out on the ice?”

“You’ll have to ask her.”

“I already did. She said to get away from you.”

“She had no reason to get away from me.”

“She thought she did.”

“Nothing I can do about that, Wayne.”

Halsey looked at him. Then he looked toward his Tahoe—the girl sitting there watching. The two mechanics in the garage bay watching. Wabash watching. The deputies with their weapons.

He turned back to Moran. “Why didn’t you report it, Ed?” he said, and he saw the question land in the other man’s eyes, the flinch that played out in some way Halsey couldn’t even say, and he knew at once what Moran thought he was asking: Ten years ago, Ed—if you pulled Danny Young over that night in that park, why didn’t you report it?

And why didn’t you ever say so, once he became a person of interest?

And if the boy had brought it up himself, that day we watched the sheriff interviewing him—what would you have said then?

But that wasn’t what Halsey was asking; this wasn’t the time for those questions.

“Report what?” Moran said finally, and Halsey said, “Why didn’t you report a girl falling through the ice, Ed? Or a girl drowning, for all you knew?” And then he watched as this question landed too, the few seconds Moran took to process it, before looking away and shaking his head again.

“I don’t know, Wayne. I don’t remember a whole lot after that cast on the side of my head. Except waking up on the ice half-froze to death—I remember that.”

Halsey watched him. Then he said, “You want to come down to the station with me, Ed?”

Moran took a breath and let it out. “No, Wayne, I do not. What I want is for you to move your vehicle so I can be on my way already.”

Halsey said nothing. He nodded, then he said, “In that case, Ed, I’m going to have to ask you to step out of this vehicle now, with your hands in the air.”

Moran didn’t move. “Don’t be an idiot, Wayne. You got no probable cause.”

“I believe I do.” He drew his gun and held it one-handed at his side. Then with his free hand he lifted the latch and swung the door open. “Now show me your hands and get up out of the car for me, Ed.”

Moran sat watching him. He looked again toward the Tahoe, the girl. He looked at the deputies. Then he put his hands in the air and stepped out of his cruiser.

“This won’t stick, Wayne,” he said, turning, lacing his hands behind his head.